“Alex Garcia in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Syed Ahmed Jamal in Lawrence, Kan., were arrested despite having no criminal convictions. The arrests deprived their families of breadwinners and induced untold stresses. Such arrests have increased substantially under the Trump administration even though deportations have lagged. . . . The net effect is just to split up families, as if by spite.

“Does the nation benefit by forcing people whose only crimes were overstaying visas or entering the country illegally — the two most frequent immigration violations — to separate from their families? Until last year, ICE officers were forbidden by presidential order from arresting immigrants for either violation. Criminals were supposed to be the priority.” – Immigration Crackdown Bypasses Criminals to Punish Family Breadwinner, Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/22/18 [Link]

Fact Check of Quote: No one denies that law enforcement imposes hardships on lawbreakers. Quite often American who commit crimes are separated from their families and sent to jail. Sometimes these incarcerated people are breadwinners. No one thinks this is outrageous. So why should it be different for foreigners who break laws in our country?

Furthermore, the immigration law violator who is caught can choose to be reunited with his family. All he has to do is take them back with him to his home country.

With most illegal aliens, their “only crimes” are not just entering illegally and overstaying visas. To live in our country for any length of time they have to break other laws. They use fraudulent IDs, sometimes derived by identity theft from American citizens; they often practice tax evasion; and they take jobs legally reserved for citizens and legal foreign residents.

Any case, the people whose “only crimes” are illegal entry and visa overstay are still criminals (i.e., people who break the law) and the penalty for their crimes is deportation. These are the laws that the Obama Administration refused to enforce, and the Post-Dispatch thinks this is acceptable.

Just what happens to our country’s rule of law when authorities can arbitrarily decide which laws they prefer to enforce and which ones they don’t? And what happens to our country when we proclaim that immigration laws no longer apply and that we are open to anyone and everyone who wants to come?

These are questions open border advocates don’t want Americans to consider. Instead, they hope to banish all inquiry and rational discussion about immigration with manipulated sympathy for foreigners who disrespect our country by ignoring our laws.

Organizations backed by the billionaire Koch brothers are demanding that the lame-duck Congress pass amnesty for as many as 3.5 million illegal aliens in the DACA category. The Koch brothers are libertarians who favor mass immigration as a means of providing cheap labor to businesses.

A U.S. District Court Judge has blocked President Trump policy of denying asylum to people who illegally cross the U.S. border between ports of entry. To apply they must go those ports.

Spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department denounced the ruling. They stated, “Our asylum system is broken, and it is being abused by tens of millions of meritless claims every year. . . . It is absurd that a set pf advocacy groups can be found to have standing to sue to stop the entire federal government from acting so that illegal aliens can receive a government benefit to which they are not entitled.”

Mexicans in Tijuana continue to protest the arrival of caravan migrants in their city. One stated, “They entered the country violently, they are demanding services. . . . The United States already said they can’t come, so what’s going to happen?” A large number anti-caravan protesters marched through the streets chanting, “Out of Tijuana” and “Mexico has its own problems.” Many sang the Mexican national anthem.

The Guardian, a left-wing U.K. newspaper, labeled the protesters “racists,” even though they and the caravan people are of the same racial background.

Members of the migrant caravan seeking to enter the United States admit that they do not qualify for asylum–the alleged reason for their coming. In interviews with The New York Times and the Guardian, migrants have revealed that their real reason is to improve their economic circumstances.

“President Trump’s newest proclamation . . . is yet another expression of [deliberately and pointlessly cruel immigration policies. It evidently hopes that repetition will somehow insulate its actions from public or judicial scrutiny.

“The latest rule enacts a wholesale, 90-day entry ban on any person trying to seek asylum at a place other than a port of entry. Requesting asylum anywhere else – say, after being captured crossing the Rio Grande – ‘would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.’ Yes, the number of people applying for asylum has nearly doubled in the past two years, but apprehensions for illegal crossings remain far below historical highs. . . .

“Mr. Trump may have left some with the impression that, once the midterms were over, he had to more use for the caravan of Central American migrants that he had fantasized about to frighten his supporters to the polls. . . . Friday’s asylum ban demonstrates that Mr. Trump’s nativist impulses are not just guides to his campaigns but also to his governing.” – Trump Dreams Up Another Immigrant Crisis, The New York Times, the Editorial Board, 11/12/18 [Link]

Fact Check of Quote: This editorial dishonestly tries to make light of President’s Trump’s concern about the caravan and suggests that he is cynically using it to promote is political agenda. In reality, it is a legitimate response to a problem which will grow worse and worse if not met with firm action.

The problem is the strategy that illegal aliens and their enablers have developed during the past few years to undermine immigration control by instructing illegal aliens to make bogus asylum claims. With massive numbers of these claims, they hope to overwhelm our asylum system and gain residence in the United States. Their strategy is working, as evidenced by the two-fold increase in asylum in the past two years—as noted by Times editorial.

There is no doubt that the system is being gamed. Asylum exists for people with a “well founded fear” of persecution because of such factors as ethnic, religious, and political persecution. Many migrants from Central American claim that they face crime and violence in their home countries, but this is not a recognized ground for asylum.

Even if it were, it is not the reason that most Central American migrants are coming here. As one example, a survey of Hondurans this year, found that only 11 percent of migrants cited violence as their reason for leaving. Eighty-three percent said that the desire to improve their economic circumstances was their motive. That too is not a ground for asylum. Of applicants for asylum in recent years, the Department of Homeland Security notes that less than ten percent qualified.

And if the truth be told, the real number might even be zero. If Central American migrants are primarily seeking safety from persecution in their countries, they could apply for asylum elsewhere in Central America or in Mexico—rather than make a long journey to the United States. The fact they come here suggests that economic gain is their primary concern.

Despite the Times’ overwrought rhetoric, President Trump’s action is really no more than a small step to deal with the growing prospect of mass abuse of the asylum system. Gallup recently stated that 160 million foreigners would like to move to the United States, including five million from Central America. Our approach to asylum needs significant changes. If not, the surge of fake asylum claims will grow into a tidal wave of humanity sweeping across our border.

After more than a month on the road, traveling by foot, bus, car, truck, and every other means of conveyance, the 5000-odd mostly Honduran caravan has reached its destination. Eight hundred migrants arrived at dawn yesterday, joining more than 750 already in place, and the remainder are expected today.

Residents of the city in which they encamped came out in the hundreds to protest their arrival. Singing their own national anthem and shouting anti-immigrant slogans, the protesters threw stones at the migrants. One woman shouted, “We don’t want you. Would you want us to go to your house and make a huge mess?” On Wednesday night, a fight broke out between the migrants and locals, angry at their arrival.

No, the migrants have yet not made it to America. This “welcome” occurred in the Mexican city of Tijuana, and it helps explain the eagerness exhibited by most Mexican authorities to hurry the caravan along and out of their jurisdiction. Now, of course, slammed up against the border, the seemingly irresistible force has (perhaps) met its immovable object. With more than 700,000 asylum cases already pending, the U.S. system could not accommodate the migrants, even if it wanted to. And President Trump has called the caravan an invasion and has beefed up the Border Patrol contingent on the U.S. side to prevent their entry.

South of Tijuana, other migrants were strung out over hundreds of miles. Several hundred were stranded at a gas station in Navojoa, about 750 miles from Tijuana. Others were straggling in and more than 5,000 were expected to be in the city by today. Estimates vary, but as many as 7,000 more migrants were elsewhere in Mexico, making their way to Tijuana and the border. The city says it can accommodate only a fraction of them and the U.S. has a months-long waiting list for asylum seekers, but they keep coming.

While the largest portion of the now more than 12,000 Central American migrants in Mexico are still much further south., the news media is filled this morning with announcements that many of the caravan have already arrived in Tijuana. Fox News is reporting that “nine buses trucked 357 travelers” on Tuesday. U.S. News and World Report is reporting that migrants arrived “by the hundreds” through Wednesday. They quote one Honduran as saying that he “intended to wait for thousands more in the caravan to arrive and that he hoped to jump the fence in a large group at the same time, overwhelming Border Patrol agents.” An Associated Press story states that some of the early arrivals immediately climbed the steel border fence after arriving, chanting ” Yes, we could!” One even dropped to the U.S. side briefly before being chased back by the Border Patrol.

Meanwhile, to the south, the remainder of the caravan was strung out over more than a thousand miles back to Guadalajara, with members of other caravans even further back. One large group of 2,000 had arrived in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, 786 miles from Tijuana. They were being aided by the Roman Catholic church, which had acquired 24 buses to transport them northward.

Democrats and cheap labor Republicans may push an amnesty for illegal aliens in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress. One possible strategy may be to offer President Trump funding for a border wall in exchange for signing an amnesty bill for 3.5 million illegal aliens in the DACA category. Immigration reform advocates say this would be a bad deal because a wall alone would do little to stop illegal immigration, while amnesty would be a strong encouragement for more foreigners to come to this country illegally.

Outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) may lead this effort. The billionaire Koch brothers are spending millions of dollars to support a DACA amnesty during the lame-duck session.

Some hundreds of migrants have already reached Tijuana, but the bulk remain far to the south. After spending Monday night in Guadalajara, about 5000 migrants in the caravan left that Pacific coast city on buses provided by the Jalisco state government. However, instead of transporting them all the way to the next Mexican state, Nayarit, as promised, the buses dropped them off 55 miles short of that destination. We’ll place their current location somewhere along the Pacific coast road, about 1300 miles from the U.S. border.

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